inside
the

In
memory of Don Leslie, inventor of the Leslie cabinet. Born 1911-Died
Sep. 2, 2004.

discovering
the
Vibratone

What's a "Vibratone"? It's a Leslie speaker cabinet --
an effects cabinet, really -- made by Fender from 1967-1972. It
adds a phasing or chorusing effect to your amplifier's output.
It's what chorus and phaser pedals try (but don't succeed) to imitate;
pedals like the H&K RotoSphere come closer. "[T]he Vibratone is to this day one of Fender's most useful
effects. ... This is a very desirable piece today because of its
practicality and tone. It would be worthy of reissue."
John Teagle and John Sprung, Fender
Amps
- The First Fifty Years
It seems that whenever I read about the Vibratone on the internet, 99%
of the time it is in reference to Stevie Ray Vaughan's recording of
"Cold Shot". This is a fine song, among his best, but it has
an unexceptional Vibratone sound. From all appearances, the only
thing most people know about the Vibratone is that it was played on
"Cold Shot", and probably they all learned it from the same
sources. I suspect these sources are the original Line-6
Flextone user's manual (which was completely wrong in its description of
the Vibratone; fortunately, recent manuals lack this description), the SRV FAQ,
or perhaps the 1984 Guitar Player interview with
Vaughn. That's a sad situation. People should have had other
sources of information, but there wasn't anything out there.
That's where this article comes in -- I hope to clarify what a Vibratone
is, what it does, how it works, to give everyone a good understanding of
what the Vibratone is all about.

There's a lot more to the Vibratone sound than one SRV song!
The history of rock music is full of the Vibratone sound, but while
there's plenty published about the Leslie cabinets designed for
organs, there's not much written about the Vibratone, and definitely
nothing in-depth. I own an early model Vibratone (s/n
1061) and have also built a "Vibratone clone" from an internal Leslie
unit out of a junked organ. And as a guitar player and music
listener, I have fallen in love with the Vibratone sound.
The information I have collected will tell you more about the
Vibratone than I have found at any other source, and I hope that this
page will open your ears to the real magic of the Leslie sound,
specifically as it is used by guitar players, and maybe help you get
that sound in your own music.

Below, I'll tell you how a Vibratone works, give you a list of rock
songs to listen for Vibratones in, tell you why you might want to use
one, and why not. I'll share some thoughts on playing style and the
Vibratone, and I'll list the many clones and knock-offs that have
appeared over the years. (You could get one of those, if you
can't find a Vibratone.)

As has been seen again and again
in (Pink Floyd's David) Gilmour's gear for over 25 years, the
man just can't get enough of that Leslie sound. Guitar
Shop,
December 1996

"I
do use the Leslie all the time." "It's the ultimate chorus." Peter Frampton, on frampton.com
and inGuitar
Player,
Feb 2004"It's the ONLY effect I
use."Dave
BozeThe "very best" Guitar
Leslie I found is a Fender Vibratone. Joe
Bonamassa, on his web message board, 11/13/2002

the
mechanics of a Vibratone

The
Fender Vibratone is a variant of the Leslie Model 16 and 18 speaker
cabinets. (CBS bought both Fender and Leslie in the
mid-1960s.) Like other Leslies, the Vibratone contains a rotating
drum mounted in front of a 4-ohm speaker (a 10" in the case of the
Vibratone and Leslie 16; a 12" in the case of the Leslie 18). This
drum is hollow, with a curved chute which acts as a deflector for the
sound, directing the signal around the room and causing interesting and
uniquely characteristic phasing effects. This is the basic
principle of the Leslie cabinet, and the Vibratone is just a type of
Leslie. They all produce phasing effects by firing their
speakers into rotating diffusers which bounce the sound off of
everything around them.

Like most Leslies, the Vibratone has two speeds, dubbed chorale
(slow) and tremelo (fast). The chorale speed,
also called chorus, is about 40 revolutions per minute, while
the tremelo is about 340 rpm. The chorale effect is a slow,
shimmering kind of sound on which the familiar chorus pedal is
based. It can be very subtle or can wash over the whole tonality
of the instrument, depending upon how it's miked. You may or may
not even notice it unless you're listening for it. On the other
hand, the tremelo effect is a fast, warbling effect that is
immediately recognizable and unmistakably organ-like, though again
miking will make it more or less prominent.

But there are some differences that make the Vibratone a unique
variety of Leslie. Unlike most Leslie speakers, these cabinets
are unamplified, acting as an extension speaker for an instrument
amplifier. And unlike other Leslie cabinets, they take 1/4"
phono plug inputs, like a guitar speaker cabinet. And they're
built like guitar cabinets, with a Tolex covering, sparkly grillcloth,
and handles, while the classic Leslie for organs is an elegant piece
of hardwood furniture. Most likely, the intent was to give
players of "combo" organs (e.g. Vox, Farfisa) access to the Leslie
sound. They already had amps, so all they needed was the
cabinet. But the chart successes of several songs with Leslie
guitar sounds in 1965 and 1966 may have alerted them to the larger
market for the cabinets.

The other
functional difference between the Vibratone and the Leslie cabinets
used for organs, besides lack of internal amplification, is that the
Vibratone has only one speaker/rotor. Some Leslie models (e.g.
25) and built-in Leslie units have the same mechanism, but the sound
usually associated with organ Leslies is produced by models like the
122 or 147, which have a large bass speaker (15") with a rotating
drum, similar to the Vibratone, but also route the high frequencies to
a compression driver in the top of the cabinet. This driver
feeds a spinning plastic horn which rotates in the opposite
direction to the drum, adding to the density of the phasing
effects. Additionally, the treble horn and bass rotor turn
at slightly different speeds, so they don't produce the same sound
every revolution. As a result, the phasing effects gained from
one of these cabinets is more complex than the Vibratone's. But
the fundamentals of the sound are the same, and both are immediately
recognizable.

The Leslie design has the deflectors rotating in the horizontal plane
(radiating from the louvres in the cabinet), while the Vibratone's
rotor moves in a vertical plane (radiating from the sides and top, not
from the front grill). Thus, the Leslie "sprays" the sound
around the room at the same level, while the Vibratone "sprays" the
sound to its side, then above itself, then to its other side.
This makes putting the sound out to your audience a little more
challenging, which will be considered later. Some of the cabinets
listed below in "other Leslie and similar speakers" duplicate the two
speaker, horn-and-drum arrangement, and some have only the spinning
horns. Thus, there are several variations on the Leslie theme as
amplifier extension cabinets.

The Fender Vibratone is
the exact equivalent of the Leslie
16 (which is identical except for the logo and the way the back
panel attaches) and Leslie
18 (basically identical except for the logo and full-range 12"
speaker). Virtually the same mechanical arrangement was
also used in many Leslie organ cabinets such as the Model 25, but they
are not included in this overview. The song list below relies
mostly on my ears and their ability to distinguish between the Leslie
sound and an electronic phaser or chorus. That's usally pretty
easy to do. What's much more difficult is to tell whether a
Vibratone is being used, or a Leslie cabinet with an internal amp and
a preamp pedal (an add-on interface allowing 1/4" phono jacks to
provide input to ann organ Leslie). The many ways to mike these
cabinets for recording makes it virtually impossible to identify a
"Vibratone sound" as opposed to a "Leslie 25 sound" or even a "Leslie
147 sound".

the
inside story

Here's the owner's manual for the 1971 Fender Vibratone,
courtesy of Fender Customer Relations department. Note that the
cover photo shows an amp with the 1968-9 styling taken from the
Vibratone (aluminum trim around the grillcloth, turquoise-thread
grillcloth). The file in in PDF format, so you'll need Adobe
Acrobat Reader to look at it.

Now,
you
may be wondering “Why did I bother to do all this - why not use a
chorus pedal and make life easy for yourself and the crew?”Well, first of all, chorus pedals hadn't been designed yet,
and if you were to listen to a guitar pumping out of two grand
Leslies playing open chords like on "The Wheel" (from “Remember the
Future”), you will understand - there is NO substitute for "that
sound." Believe me, if I could use them
again I would; nothing comes close. Roye
Albrighton (Nektar)

some
history and a song list

I have collected some song titles that feature Vibratones or
other similar cabinets, from 1960 to the present. Why 1960, when
the Vibratone was introduced in 1967? The idea of using a
Leslie as a guitar effect seems to have been reinvented several times
before Fender decided to make a box specifically for the purpose. I
think LaVern Baker's "Bumble Bee" (1960) was the first hit record to
feature a guitar played through a Leslie cabinet. It was a novelty
record and the odd sound suited the wacky lyrics. According to allmusic.com,
Phil Spector was the producer and guitarist on that record, which
suggests that he may have been the first to try the combination.

Five years later, Jewel Akens' "The Birds and the Bees" (1965) also
became a hit, and featured a prominent guitar Leslie sound. Carol Kaye,
ace Los Angeles studio bassist and guitarist, played that track:

I remember when they put my guitar through the Leslie organ
speaker cabinet at Gold Star (they tried with another guitar player at
first but he couldn't trigger it very well, it didn't work good with
his way of picking, and so they gave it to me to try as my way of
picking is strong and even -- I was well-known for the strong playing
I did on guitar). How different that sound was.

And it was good for 2 hot recordings for Jewel Akens - "Birds And
The Bees" etc. which I played guitar through the Leslie. [Carol
Kaye, writing on spectropop.com, 03/05/99]

Aken's March 1965 hit was followed in June by the Beach Boys' "You're So
Good To Me" and in July by Gary Lewis and the Playboys' "Save Your Heart
For Me", both also featuring a guitar run through a Leslie
speaker. Since Carol Kaye played on many Beach Boys tracks,
it seems quite possible that both songs were Kaye's work. She also
played on some of the Playboys' sessions (though on bass, I think), so
someone else in the LA "Wrecking Crew" was probably behind the Leslie
guitar sound on that song. I think we can call Gold Star Studios
the birthplace of the Vibratone concept.

The Beatles' engineers are credited with an huge innovation for having
run John Lennon's vocal on "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966) through an
organ Leslie, but at that point the innovation was strictly in using the
cabinet for vocals. Clearly, people in the Los Angeles recording
studio control rooms already knew that Leslies could be used for sounds
other than organs. Of course, the Beatles later played guitars through
the Vibratone on many songs, to the point where about half the songs on
Abbey Road feature a Vibratone sound.

It is quite possible that the Cordovox CL-10
was the inspiration for the guitar-oriented Vibratone. Cordovox made
accordion synths, and the CL-10 was a small box (the same cab as their
amps and synths) with the drop-in Leslie units used in home organs.
Maybe guitarists got the idea from accordion players who copped the
idea from organists? There is a great shot of a CL-10 onstage in Elvis
Presley's 1966 movie Spinout,
used as the sole cabinet under a blonde Bandmaster head. We can
speculate that someone at Leslie saw the movie and the light bulb went
on. (Search online for a video of the song "Stop, Look and Listen" to
see this historic performance.)

Somehow, Leslie/CBS got the message, and the Vibratone was born
in 1967. Mostly Vibratones are used as guitar effects, but
somtimes to modify the sound of voices and other instruments, for
example, the eerie vocals on Pink Floyd's "Time" from Dark Side of
the Moon. Many of these recordings also have Hammond
organs with Leslies, of course, but that's another topic altogether
and this list was chosen to highlight the Vibratone sound on other
instruments.

It has been reported that Clarence was
the first to use a Fender Leslie as it was at a time that CBS bought
the company and asked Clarence to try it out on stage.

This probably refers to the Vibratone or Leslie 16/18, since the CBS
sale and White's stint with the Byrds (and thus his rise to the kind of
prominence that would prompt Fender to shove new equipment at him) were
several years after the dates cited above.

The Vibratone cabinet is 28.5" tall, 21.75" wide and 15" deep,
weighing about 70 lbs. It is made of finger-jointed pine,
like all Fender cabinets, with plywood or particle board baffles.
The speaker faces the front of the cabinet, but the rotor is in front of
it, dispersing the sound in the vertical plane through vents in the top
and sides, with a little escaping out the front grillcloth through a
small opening at the bottom of the front baffle. That diagonal
opening you can see through the top section of grillcloth is only there
to provide space for the rotor's bracing, which reduces the size of the
cabinet a little. Very little sound gets through it.

The rotor in the Vibratone is made from molded Styrofoam.
Most Leslie cabinets for organs had rotors made from plywood, though
the foam rotor was also used in Leslie units that were built into home
organs. (More on that later.)

The rear view shows a Leslie 18. The Vibratone's rear panel is
not removable, but the components are the same. At the bottom
left is the connector box and power supply. The on/off switch,
fuse and power status light are on this box, as are the connectors for
the cable harness and the internal wiring. You can see that most
of a Vibratone cabinet is air, but all that wood adds up to a box that
weighs about the same as a Fender Twin Reverb, but is bulkier.

The Vibratone has a wiring harness with a two-button footswitch pedal
that uses the same housing as the Fender amps of the late 1960s.
The footswitch terminates two cables with 1/4" phono connectors -- one
plug and one jack. To connect the Vibratone, the harness'
plug is inserted into the amplifier's main speaker jack, and the amp's
cabinet or internal speakers are plugged into the harness' jack.
This puts the Vibratone and its switches between the amp and the
speakers. One of the switches on the pedal routes the sound
either to the amp's speakers or to the Vibratone. The other
switch changes the rotor between chorus and tremelo speeds. On
later models, there was also a cylindrical crossover that restricted
the frequencies sent to the Vibratone (seen at left in the photo).

Note to Vibratone shoppers
if you're thinking of buying a Vibratone or Leslie 16/18 without the
cable harness and footswitch: It's difficult to find parts to
build these, but it is possible to do it yourself, and many have done
it. (Schematics
here.) If you are capable of building the harness
yourself, then you should demand a substantial discount on the
cabinet's price because, wtihout the footswitch, it's either unusable
or it has been butchered up to try to provide the same
functions. I have not seen very many cabinets that came out well
after such a treatment. Speakeasy
Vintage
Music also makes a replacement control box, so check with them
on price and availability before paying for a cabinet without a
control harness.

Cosmetically,
both
the Vibratone and the Leslie models followed Fender design
standards. All were covered in pebble-textured
Tolex. The early models had turquoise and silver grill
cloth (even in 1965-7) with the cast Fender logo. The grill
cloth was surrounded by a thin aluminum border referred to as a "drip
edge", and this grill style (turquoise cloth with drip edge) was
applied to the entire Fender amp line in 1968 and 1969.
Although the photo from the 1970 Fender flyer shows a plain grill
cloth, as far as I can tell the Vibratones retained the aluminum trim
strip throughout production. Starting sometime in 1968,
Vibratone models received the so-called "solid state styling" logo,
with a large metal nameplate replacing the cast logo. In 1968,
it appears that some Vibratones were produced with a hybrid styling --
the cabinet pictured here seems to be a completely original 1968
model, sporting an unhappy combination of both logo plates.

Towards the end, the Vibratone was actually a Leslie Model 16 with a
Fender/Leslie logo plate. The mechanism had always carried a Leslie 16
label inside the cabinet, while the serial number plate showed a
Fender number. But really late Vibratones carried a serial number
plate that read "Leslie Speaker Model 16", with a Leslie serial
number. These seem to be quite rare.

Compare this logo plate, on an
otherwise ordinary Leslie 16, to the earlier style without "Leslie".

how many were made?

The highest serial number I've seen on a Vibratone is 5790 on a
late style cabinet. I have also seen late-model Vibratones with
Leslie plates and serial numbers, so the Vibratone serial numbers
can't really be used to accurately determine total production
volume. At this point, I think (far) less than 10,000 would be a
reasonable guess; since the Leslies had a different serial number
sequence, it's probably impossible to estimate the total number of
Vibratones and identical Leslies. The existence of Leslie 16
cabinets with a "Fender/Leslie Vibratone" logo further confuses the
question, unfortunately.

And a related cosmetic question: how many "early" style cabinets (with
the cast logo) were made, and how many "late" style (with the wide metal
"solid state" panel)? Keep in mind that the early style was built
for only a year or so (1967 and part of 1968). So far, the latest serial
number I have seen on an early style cabinet is 2226, but I'm not
convinced that this is original. I have seen several cabinets with
numbers in the high 1500 range, with matching speaker codes from 1967,
so I would place the upper number at around 1600 with some confidence.

On the other hand, I have seen one late style cabinet with a serial
number under 1200. What's going on here?

It's easier to explain the high-numbered early cabinets. The cast
Fender logo has always been available as a repair part, so
refurbishing a late cab with the cast logo (and a new grill cloth?) is
simple. Thus, high numbers on some "early" Vibratones are to be
expected, even if they're not original. But how about late cabs with
low serial numbers? That's much more problematic, since the "solid
state" styling lasted only a few years, and the logo panel was unique
to the Vibratone. Updating an early Vibratone to the late style is
much more difficult (nearly impossible), so I think the lowest numbers
on the late style cabinets should be taken as the dividing line, until
we get some more compelling data. That gives us a range of around 1200
to 1600 as the border between early and late.

In light of the photo above, there is also the possibility that the
solid state logo bars were added to existing cabinets by the factory,
to update the look of unshipped inventory when the new style was
introduced. Thas is probably how the cabinet shown got its double
logos. It may also be the reason why there are conflicting data about
the "last early" and "first late" style cabinets. Say the factory
built a batch of 250 cabinets and stuck them in a corner of the
warehouse. The first ones off the line (lowest serial numbers) would
be the first to go into the warehouse. If they took them out of the
warehouse in reverse order, the higher numbers could have been shipped
to dealers first, with the old logo. Then, the cabinets remaining in
the warehouse could have been updated with the new logo, giving us a
range of transitional serial numbers which could have had either logo
(or both).

At this point, it's mostly theoretical. We do know, however, that
there were probably less than 2000 early style cabs, with the rest
having the late style logo bar. If in doubt, check the EIA codes on
the speaker and the motors. If they match the probable date indicated
by the serial number, then it's a more convincing date.

If you have a Vibratone, I
would really appreciate knowing its serial number and logo type, along
wtih any other data you care to dig up (the motor code can be read by
removing the front panel, while the speaker code requires removing the
center baffle as well). If there are other signs of original condition
or modification (e.g. has original manual and cover, has replaced
speaker, has home-made control box, etc.), it would be good to know
those things as well. Please send them to the e-mail address at the
bottom of the page. For info on reading EIA codes, see the WeberVST
web site.

the
vibratone's family

The Vibratone has a lot of
"cousins". Leslie made a whole range of "road-ready" cabinets,
distinct from their hardwood cabinets which were designed to go in
churches or living rooms. In addition to the unamplified Model 16
and Model 18, the Model 60 main/satellite amp also accepted 1/4"
inputs. There were a number of organ-only cabinets, which were
internally identical to the hardwood models, and could be connected to
guitars or electric pianos by means of the Leslie Combo Preamp, a pedal
that boosted the signal to the levels expected by the organ cabs and had
the proper connectors. No doubt, the owners of Marshall stacks
lusted after the mighty Model 950 (right). It contained
four 12" speakers, each with its own 50w amplifier and rotating
baffle. In addition, each of the rotors was decorated with a
flourescent psychedelic design, accentuated by dual blacklight
strobes. This "portable" cabinet was 68" tall and weighed 375
lbs! You could bring your own light show, if you could move
it. Admittedly, this paragraph has little to do with the Vibratone
sound. But this is such an outrageously cool cabinet, it had to be
included!

Here's a brochure from the late 1960s showing the entire
"professional" line (click on thumbnails to see full-size images).

some
notes on sound and style

Leslie experts point out that the phasing effect of an organ
Leslie is much more complex than that of a Vibratone. They explain
that the low frequencies handled by the large rotors in Leslies produce
primarily amplitude modulation, or volume differences, while the
rotating treble horn in a Leslie produces frequency modulation,
or pitch shifting. Bass sounds are pretty well non-directional, so
you can't hear the phasing effects. In other words, they are
saying that the bass rotor in the Leslie (and the Vibratone) is just a
big, heavy tremelo unit.

This is true for a Leslie cabinet. Not so in the Vibratone.
While you can't argue with the science behind the assertions above,
the ears tell a different story. There seems to be enough
frequency modulation in a Vibratone to produce lots of phasing, which
is caused when two very close but slightly different frequencies are
played at the same time, while each is changed in pitch.
The characteristic sound of a Vibratone is definitely that of phasing,
but you would never confuse it with a tube-based "vibrato" circuit on
your amp. Miking the Vibratone closely will really bring this
out.

One big difference between two-speaker Leslies and Vibratones is that
the Vibratone only has one full-range speaker, so the highs that are
cut off by the crossover in a Leslie are handled by the one speaker in
a Vibratone. (I don't have the filter unit for my Vibratone, but
my understanding is that it sent the mid-range to the Vibratone and
left the extreme lows and highs in the amp's speakers.) The
other big difference is that you can't really use a Vibratone in a
performance situation without miking, and of course you must mike it
to record. Miking a Vibratone closely produces lots of
frequency-modulated phasing effects, so you will hear the Leslie sound
clearly from a miked Vibratone.

In fact, Clifford A. Henricksen's article (see references below)
suggests disconnecting the crossover and running an organ Leslie's
signal into a full-range bass speaker. Clearly, the effect of
that modification must be different from the stock Leslie sound, which
further indicates to me that the AM-only comment about Leslies is
probably irrelevant to Vibratones.

Stevie Ray Vaughan didn't play through his Vibratone exclusively, but
used it in parallel with his main amps to add touches of color rather
than switching to a completely different sound. He played
primarily through a Dumble head and a Marshall cabinet, with a Fender
Vibroverb driving the Vibratone cabinet, or with the Vibratone
switched in place of one of the Marshall cabs. Obviously, with
all that air moving, the Vibratone was miked.

Danny Gatton used a heavily-modified Leslie cabinet similarly as an
additional texture, although some of his recordings do feature a
saturated rotary sound without a clean signal mixed in. Many
players use Vibratones to add some texture or density to their sound
in this fashion.

The other, more common, use is to record only the Vibratone sound
without a dry signal, and insert it as a textural effect with other
instruments, or on a lead line. When it's featured throughout a
song, it really jumps out, just as using a phaser or ring modulator
for a whole song would. On the other hand, lots of players in
the 1970s and '80s kept their chorus pedals on all the time, and using
the slow speed of the Vibratone produces a similar effect.
It really adds body to an amplified acoustic, too.

Two guitars in particular lend themselves to being played through a
Vibratone on the chorale setting: acoustics and 12-strings. The
shimmer added by the Vibratone makes the sound of an amplified
acoustic guitar really come alive. And the rich jangle of an
electric 12-string becomes even more lush and dense with the adding
phasing effect.

On "LaTonya", Kevin Barry (Amen,
Paula Cole Band) plays the Leslie much like an organist, which is
unusual for a guitarist. Guitarists usually just turn it on one
speed and leave it, like a pedal. Organists tend to use not only
the two speeds, but also the in-between sounds you get when you change
speeds. It takes 6-8 seconds for the rotor to wind up or down,
and this gradual change of speed can produce some nice effects in its
own right. In other words, you can (and should) play the
Vibratone itself, along with your instrument. As an analogy,
think of the difference between the way Hendrix or Zappa used a
wah-wah, compared to the foot-tapping wah-wah rhythms of a funk
band. They used the wah to emphasize the tonality of their
solos, not just the rhythm.

Surely the master of this technique (among guitarists) is Danny
Gatton.You can hear this best on his amazing Redneck Jazz Explosion,
where changing the speed of the Leslie is used to accentuate solos,
short passages, or even single chords.. And, of course, try listening
to Hammond players and the way they use the Leslie speeds, and listen
for ways to do similar things with your Vibratone.

miking
the Vibratone

If you're playing a large room, outside, etc., you'll need to
mike the Vibratone and run it into the sound system. Now that this
technique is widespread and sound systems are set up to do it as a
matter of course, the Vibratone loses many of it weaknesses and becomes
another fabulous analog effect in your kit of tricks.

And of course, if you're recording you'll have to find the right way
to mike it. Note that some of the latter-day clones have
built-in mikes and XLR outputs to let you plug right into the
mixer. You could do that with your Vibratone, of course, but
it's not necessary and it may actually not work as well as the
"low-tech" approach.

I found that close miking one of the grills gives a very
pronounced phasing effect. I discovered this once after playing
live, when the sound guy had put a cordless lapel mike right on my
Vibratone's top grill. He made a recording off the board and my
guitar had a thick, lush Leslie sound that I just didn't hear standing
in front of the cabinet. Miking from in front of the cab gives
more direct sound from the raw speaker and less from the rotor's path,
making the effect more subtle.

Really close miking, such as placing the mike inside the
cabinet, is probably not a good idea, however. For one thing,
the mike is much more likely to pick up rotational noise (bearing
rumble, wind noise) from the drum. But probably more important
is the fact that a lot of the drum's effect is amplitude modulation,
or a change in loudness. This is not so evident standing at the
front of a stage with your cab in back, but when you stick the
microphone right up against the drum it becomes very pronounced.
Mark Vail quotes the legendary Bill Beer of Keyboard Products: "If you
get the mics too close, you get a very choppy termolo, which you may
want for an effect." You can hear this in one
of the demo clips for SongWorks Rotary
Wave cabinet.

On the other hand, miking at a distance, in front rather than from
the top or side, stereo miking, etc. will all give different and
potentially desirable effects. With mikes on either side, you'll
get a bounce between the channels (the Leslie Model 60 had two cabs to
accentuate this effect). Mix the channels slightly to either
side of center and you'll get the illusion of a Leslie at center
stage. Pan them full right and left and you'll get a spacey
sound that flies back and forth across the soundfield. This is a
deceptively simple box -- you can get a lot of different
sounds out of it by moving the mikes.

Bill Beer again: "Miking the Leslie has always been very
controversial; everyone has their own idea of tonality." In the
end, you should spend some time with different mikes and different
setups, and experiment to see what is possible and what fits your
style.

OK, you've gotten hooked on the sound of the Vibratone, and
you want to add it to your tonal palette. What's the down side?

First, you have to find one. You can't walk into your local
music store (even the used music store) and just say "Hey, Stan, give
me a Vibratone!" When they do appear, the pricing is generally
several times what a chorus pedal runs, which turns some people
away. But they can be found, and it's easier now than ever since
we have the internet to help us. Start checking the GBase
Guitar Mall or eBay auctions.

Now, you're back from your search and you have acquired a
Vibratone. Go back and look at the physical specifications of
the cabinet. It's big and it's heavy. It weighs about the
same as a Fender Twin Reverb, only it's in a cabinet that's twice as
tall and half again as deep. (But it's way better than an organ
Leslie, which is made of furniture-grade hardwood and weighs about
twice as much.) You're going to need a dolly or a big burly
friend to drag this around from gig to gig.

No problem -- your buddy Tiny always helps the band with
equipment. But once you get onstage, you'll discover that the
10" speaker doesn't quite move the air like your Marshall stack.
You hit the Vibratone's footswitch and your sound drops by 7/8 (8x10s
vs. 1x10). It's going to require miking or an A/B amp setup to
get the same sound levels if you play at SRV volumes (see
below). Turning your Vibratone into a Leslie 18 by changing the
speaker to a 12" will help some, of course.

But even if you play a Deluxe Reverb with one 12" speaker, and beef
up the Vibratone's speaker to match your amp's speaker exactly,
there's the dispersal problem mentioned earlier. The
arrangement of the rotor projects the sound to the sides of and above
the cabinet, not out to the audience. Turning the Vibratone on
its back should fix that problem, if you can find a way to support
it. If you're playing a large room, or at high volume, the
Vibratone is not going to cut it without some reinforcement.
This is not much of a problem in a small room, however, or a recording
studio.

If these considerations discourage you from using a Vibratone,
consider the alternatives. They can be pretty lame.

reasons
not to use a cheap imitation

At this point, you might be tempted to fall back on one of the
cheap imitators -- various electronic attempts to clone the sound of the
mechanically rotating speaker. This is not meant to demean them,
because they have their own sounds and can be used to provide a
particular sonic effect in your playing, just like the Vibratone.
And using a Vibratone on the road can be a pain. It's big, it's
heavy, and it won't push enough air to fill an auditorium.

Why would you mess with one? It's simply because no one has
been able to accurately reproduce the sound of a rotating speaker
cabinet in an electronic circuit. The sounds produced are far
too complex, involving multiple reflections and room interactions that
are impossible to "model" electronically. Chorus pedals sound
like chorus pedals, which is a cool effect but immediately
distinguishable from a Vibratone. Phasers also capture a
characteristic of rotating speakers, but again it's just one aspect of
a complex sound. The modeling pedals and amps sound a little
more like a Vibratone, but they usually come nowhere close to the real
thing. Some of the dedicated analog pedals (e.g.
UniVibe) are considered suitable substitutes, but only if you can't
get the real thing. In short, the only way to get the
Vibratone sound is with a rotating speaker cabinet.
And because it takes a little bit extra to get the Vibratone sound,
not too many other guitarists use them -- which gives your
sound some uniqueness.

Throughout the years I've said, "If anybody's going to
beat the Leslie speaker, maybe I can do it." I've built all
kinds of electronic shifters -- phase, frequency, amplitude, all
mixed up in various ways, in different combinations. But I've
never been able to duplicate the real thing, and I've tried many
times. The easiest way is to rotate a horn. That's what
I learned after 40 years of playing with electronics.Don
Leslie, quoted in The Hammond Organ: Beauty in the B

Back to you-know-who, the 1984 Guitar Magazine article on
SRV's backline noted

"A longtime Hendrix fan, Vaughan hoarded a host of
Hendrix-associated boxes, including a UniVibe, Fuzz Face and Octavia.
The UniVibe approximated the sound of a Leslie rotating speaker
cabinet but Vaughan usually preferred the effect given by his
Fender Vibratone, as can be heard on `Cold Shot'."
(Emphasis mine.)

Well, of course he did. Luckily, there are other alternatives to
pedals. There were (and are) quite a few other rotating cabinets
made either by Leslie or by competitors. It seems that Fender
discontinued the Vibratone too soon, while interest was still high, so
lots of Leslie imitators continued building them through the
1970s. So, there are lots of other names to look for in your
search. Or, you can build one yourself.

Keyboard Magazine did a "Leslie Simulators Roundup" in 2001,
if you want to read some careful evaluations of the current options
(tested with keyboards, but listening for The Sound and considering
guitar players, as well). If you can't find or don't want to use
a Vibratone, you can find the best imitators there.

Over the last couple of years, the increasing popularity of modeling
amps (in particular Fender's
"Cyber" amps, which have "Vibratone" settings) has meant that the
Vibratone sound is more accessible to more players. I'm not a fan of
digital modeling, at least in its current state. But I will confess
that I've been hearing recordings with "Vibratones" in them, which can
not be clearly identified as "real" or "imitation". So, if you're
inclined to buy a modeling amp and like the Vibratone sound, you may
find that you can kill two birds with one stone. It's not the same,
but it's much closer than any pedal I've heard. (Or, musicians are
listening to the digitized version on the modeling amps and then
asking the studios to pull out their vintage Leslie gear....)

other
Leslie and similar speakers

Lots of people have come up with ways to get the Leslie Sound,
either by direct copying or other means. The following are all
Leslie clones of one sort or another. They are analog devices that
take a speaker's output and add phasing to it with some kind of
mechanical rotating feature. The only pedal included is an
interface box that allows instruments with 1/4" jacks to run through an
organ Leslie, not an electronic simulator.

The very best alternative to the Vibratone, sonically, is a traditional
Leslie cabinet with a Combo Preamp pedal. The organ Leslies have
40-watt or larger tube amps in them, and the preamp pedal permits
adjusting the volume independently of your main amp. And the dual
spinning reflectors in most models give deliciously rich phasing
effects. The disadvantage, of course, is that the organ cabs weigh
even more than a Vibratone, so we're back to the tradeoff of portability
vs. sound volume.

Fortunately, there are some companies making cabinets that duplicate the
function of the Vibratone, but in smaller, more portable formats.
Motion Sound is now producing
several cabinets or amps that function like Vibratones, some with
built-in amps, and the Little
Lanilei
Rotary Wave cab looks like another good candidate. The
currently available cabs are listed at the end of the table.

Allsound
sold integrated amp/Leslie cabinets. Some had both treble horns
and a drum, while others had the bass rotor and treble horns in
separate cabinets (see Dynacord 200). Internals were made by
Spacesound, an Italian company (same as Dynacord). Made in the
1970s in Germany; no longer made.

Cordovox made
accordions that were actually analog synthesizers. Their
main cabinets had hundreds of vacuum tubes in the tone generator
and a 40-watt amp with two 12" speakers. There was also a
rotary speaker cabinet that contained the same mechanism as the
Vibratone. But the early Cordovox Leslie cabinets (CL-10)
were much smaller -- only about half the height of the
Vibratone. This translates into a speaker with the same
function as a Vibratone, but much less bulk. (Later,
larger, Cordovox cabs were rebadged Vibratones, however.)

The Cordovox CL-10 appears to have exactly the same internals
as the built-in Leslie units produced for home organs -- foam
rotor, 8" Jensen speaker, two speeds. Cordovox just
stuck them in their own cases and sent them out the
door. Other models had different speakers, but they were
probably drop-in units as well. The CL-10 control
harness is just an on-off switch for the speaker. The
fast/slow switch is a rocker on the top of the cabinet.

The larger CL-20 CL-30 had two- or three-button footswitches
and a 10" speaker -- basically, a Vibratone with a Cordovox
badge. (See Farfisa.)

Davoli
was another cabinet built in the 1970s around Italian Spacesound
internals, but in this one the speaker moves in a rotating
"can", rather than a fixed speaker with a rotating deflector.
Powered by an internal, 40-watt tube amp. No longer made. Photos courtesy of fetishguitars.com

Dynacord DC200 Spacesound
System. This Italian- and German-made speaker takes the
bulky Leslie cabinet and splits it into two parts; very similar
to the Leslie 910 or MotionSound Pro. The treble rotor is in the
smaller cabinet and the bass rotor in the larger one.
Contains a 200w solid state amp. Originally introduced
around 1974 as the Echolette ME III. Marketed as an organ
cabinet. No longer made.

Dynacord still makes a "Leslie simulator", but it's an
electronically synthesized pedal.

Echolette
ME-1 (by Dynacord) is an interesting hybrid from around
1970. It contains a 40w transistor amplifier with spring reverb,
a side-facing, two-speed Leslie rotary unit for the middle
frequencies and a forward-facing, fixed 12-inch speaker for low
frequencies. The top half looks like standard drop-in unit sold
to organ manufacturers, but there's a possibility that it may be
a horn unit, as in the top of a theater Leslie cabinet.

Farfisa Cordovox (a later model with a
2-button or 3-button footswitch). Based on the dimensions,
weight, top/side vents and the hint of a diagonal recess in the
front panel, I would call this a rebadged Vibratone or Leslie
16/18. One owner reports a 12" speaker, which if original
would make it equivalent to a Model 18. No longer made.

Farfisa
RS180 An interesting and unique design by the Italian
electric music firm. This one has a built-in solid-state amp and
two speakers. The speakers fire into a rotating body that is a
combination half-cylindrical reflector for the 12" bass speaker
below and sound pipe for the 6" treble speaker above. This
ingenious reflector/horn (right photo) looks like it should give
you both the FM and AM sound components of a full Leslie
cabinet, albeit without the counter-rotating signals of the
Leslie. No longer made, and seldom seen.

Godwin L35 is an amplified cabinet,
roughly a 2-foot (50cm) cube. Made by a Italian builder of
Hammond organ clones. We have little additional
information on it at present. It appears that the cabinet is
built like the bottom of a conventional Leslie (down-firing
speaker, rotor in horizontal plane). Probably no longer made.

MTI RotoPhaser. Another, somewhat more portable
cabinet with 1/4" inputs, this one made in Italy in the 1970s.
Equivalent to the top part of a full Leslie cabinet, that is,
with a fixed compression tweeter and a rotating treble
horn. Therefore, similar to the current MotionSound Pro3.
23.5"w x 19"d x 16"h. No longer made.

Editor's note: This is what I
play now, because it's more portable than a Vibratone and it
projects the sound more directly into the audience.

Selmer
also sold the Leslie 16/18 with their own cabinet and badge.

Former Selmer employee Patrick Kirby also reported a Selmer amp
with built-in reverb and Leslie, which he says was rented by
Abbey Road studios for Beatles sessions. (I consider the Beatles
connection apocryphal until a photo turns up, since an actual
Vibratone was shown prominently in "Let It Be".) Gaz Hunter
(UK) has kindly provided a photo of this unusual combo amp,
which he compares to a Fender Bassman tonally. No longer made.

Selmer Leslie 16/18Selmer Leslie combo amp

TurnSound. Little information on
this one. The top section contains what appears to be a
10" or 12" speaker that spins around, very similar to the Mesa
Revolver. A patent
issued to Turnsound claims a novel baffle arrangement. No
longer made.

Maestro Rover. From 1975, this
rotating speaker speaker is housed in a cylindrical metal
enclosure about 12"x24" on a stand. It has internal
amplification for high frequencies, and routes lows to an
external amp. Has top-mounted controls and a speed-control
pedal. Used most famously by David Gilmour in Pink Floyd's
later recordings; also on Wilco's "Via Chicago". No longer
made.

There was a brief review in a 1995 Guitar Player
article.

Gilmour liked the Rover so much that he had higher-powered
units based on it, called a "Doppola",
custom-built
for stage use.

Mesa Boogie Revolver Mk
II. The 12" speaker spins on its baffle, rather than using
a drum. It is similar to the TurnSound cabinet in this
respect. 2-button footswitch (speaker on/off, fast/slow
speed), and an optional speed control (very un-Leslie!).
Used by Kevin Eubanks of the Tonight Show band, according to the
Mesa site.

Roland Revo. Hard to say whether this can
actually be called a Leslie clone. Rather than
physically moving a speaker or reflector, the signal was routed
around a semicircle of smaller speakers in the top of the
cab. (Some Leslie organ cabs had a similar
electromechanical spatial generator.) In addition to the
moving sound, the Revo also had a built-in stereo chorus.

There were several different Revo models, all apparently with
1/4" inputs. The larger ones had an internal solid-state
amp with built-in reverb, driving one 15" bass speaker and
three or six 6" speakers. The Revo 30 used what look
like large home stereo speakers. All had a
separate control box which is where the signal processing took
place. It doesn't appear that the cabinets will work
without the control box. Dimensions: 30" high X 27" wide
X 21" deep. Weight: approx. 100 lbs.
No longer made.

The rarely seen Rotronic
was built by an obscure company in Waco, Texas. It features a
vertically-mounted drum over an upward-firing 10-inch speaker,
with 1/4" input and a built-in amp. The cabinet is 24" tall with
a 14" square footprint, and so only about half the weight of a
Vibratone. No longer made.

Vox
Jennings. This rare mid-1960s cabinet (top)
has two forward-facing 12-inch speakers and an upward-facing
12-inch speaker firing into a rotating drum. No longer made.The photo below at right
shows the "head only" version of the cabinet, the VoxGyrotone.
The single-button footswitch suggests that it has only one
speed.

Wilder
made another rarely seen box for its solid-state amp in 1966.
This cabinet has a forward-facing stationary speaker in the
bottom part, plus a high-frequency rotating horn in the top. The
horn appears to be one-speed, so it produces either a fast
effect or nothing. No longer made.

Yamaha made a number of different
amp/rotary speaker cabinets with 1/4" inputs. The Solton
was another two-part stack (like Leslie 960, Dynacord, etc.),
with internal amplification. Marketed as an organ cabinet,
but with inputs for other instruments, too. Other
rotary cabs identified were as the RA-50, RA-100 (photo,
right), TX1, TM1, Dopplertone 150 or Twinjet
cabinet. I assume that these were all
different models. The RA-100 and the internal organ
versions had two horns spinning vertically. No longer
made.

David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) used the RA-200 in several recordings
between 1976-1983 (gilmourish.com).

Yamaha RA-100

MS-Audiotron. A Finnish cabinet with
no internal amplification. No longer made. There is
virtually no information on this cabinet, but we suspect that it
was a repackaged Italian unit. No further information
available. (Company still exists, making mixers and other
audio equipment.)

No picture available.

Elkatone. Italian
wood cabinets (like Leslie organ cabs) from the late
1970s. They have a spinning horn and one or more woofers,
internal amp, and multiple instrument inputs (unlike Leslie
cabs). One diagram shows a "sound pipe" carrying waves
from the woofer to a tee joint with the tweeter; the sound from
both speakers is thus routed through the spinning
horns. No further information available. No
longer made, but apparently still widely available second-hand
in Italy.

Rear of Elkatone cabinet. Front is virtually
identical to a Leslie.

Oliver Orbital Power Projector.
Designed by Jess Oliver of Ampeg fame. Similar in design
to the MTI Rotophaser -- a smaller cabinet (20”x12”x16”) with a
"Leslie top" (spinning horns) in it. Has continuous speed
control. No longer made.

RoLo
Grand Integrated amp and rotating speaker with a
novel and eye-catching approach to reducing cabinet weight.
Apparently made for accordionists. Chicken-head knobs and
thumbscrew-on-post input connectors hint at a very early design
date. No longer made.

Sharma
cabinets were made by Keith Hitchcock during the 1970s. They
came in various sizes, up to a two-part monster (model 7000)
with dual speakers feeding the rotor and horn and four
solid-state amps. Of special note was the design of the treble
horns: they are made of plywood with a square section, with
plastic diffusers at the ends.

Universal
RS10. This two-part stack is similar to Leslie's road
models -- the upper portion contains the rotating horn and an
amp with 1/4" inputs, while the lower cabinet contains a 12"
woofer and a rotating drum. The cabs have handles and the lower
one also has casters. We can find little information about this
one, but presume it is no longer made.

still available

Hammond-Leslie have
caused a big stir among gear fans with their announcement of the
Leslie G37 and G27
cabinets. These are "full" Leslies (with treble horn and bass
drum rotors) obviously aimed to compete with Motion Sound's
boxes. The G37 has a hybrid amp (tube preamp, solid state power
amp), while the G27 is a passive box -- hook it to your amp head
just like you would connect a Vibratone.

These cabinets were introduced in 2008. Prices (in 2010) are
around US$1500; the G27 is only slightly less expensive than the
G37.

Songworks Little Lanilei Rotary Wave. This interesting
box has a varied history. There were once two models of
the Rotary Wave: one with a 10" 50-watt Jensen speaker firing
into a rotating drum (just like a Vibratone!), the other with a
6.5" speaker and drum.

The smaller version was discontinued, and for a whle the larger
box came only in kit form.
Songworks is now part of Mahaffey Amps, and as of this writng,
the 10" cabinet is available ready-to-run, with tweed covering.

Since the speaker fires upwards, its dispersion pattern is more
like a big Leslie cabinet than the Vibratone's. It has a
DC motor with a continuously variable speed control -- perhaps
harder to get the authentic Vibratone speeds just right, but it
offers a lot of additional options. At 22"x12"x12" and 15
lbs., it's much
more portable than a Vibratone, and it can be
optionally battery-powered.

Motion Sound is a current manufacturer
that makes several spinning-speaker cabinets. The Pro-3
and Pro-3T are similar to the MTI Rotophaser. They contain
rotating treble horns and are internally amplified. The
"T" in "Pro-3T" stands for "tube"; this model has a 12AX7 in the
preamp for a more Leslie-like tube distortion setting. For
a full Leslie sound, but maintaining greater portability, there
is an add-on bass cabinet, the Low Pro. This gives you a
configuration similar to the Dynacord 200 or a Leslie 21
(below).

Especially designed for guitarists, the Spindoctor (pictured)
is mechanically a reincarnation of the compact Cordovox
cabinets, while the Sidewinder has a 100w solid state amp with
a 12AX7 in the preamp and a 12" speaker. (No longer avalable.

The "SRV" speakers, introduced in 2006, replaced the
Spindoctor. It is unamplified and comes in two models, with
one 12" speaker (SRV-112) or two 12" speakers (SRV-212).

They also make an "AcousticField" model tailored for acoustic
guitar amplification. (No longer available; replaced by their
keyboard amps.)

Speakeasy Vintage Sound
manufactures a range of rotary cabinets designed for stage
musicians. All cabs feature rotary treble horns; some models
have rotary drums for bass, others have a fixed speaker. They
are available with tube or solid state amps of various wattage
ratings, as well as a speaker-only version directed at
guitarists. http://www.speakeasyvintagemusic.com/feedback-and-info/roadbox/

Tolerance Sound produces a
speaker apparently modeled on David Gilmour's "Doppola", which
they call the Revolver P26. (There is also a
single-speaker model, the P16, which is comparable to
the Maestro Rover.) They're lightweight and easily
portable, but of course must be miked to keep up with a band.
The site features specs, as well as videos of the speakers in
action.http://www.tolerancesound.com/

Trek II makes various accessories for Leslies,
including modern versions of Leslie's Combo Preamp (no longer
available from Leslie), which was a footpedal that permitted
running instruments with 1/4" input cables into Leslie organ
cabinets. If you happen to have an big, wooden, internally
amplified Leslie, you can plug your guitar into one of these and
get that ripping Leslie sound. http://www.trekii.com

build
your own?

Yes, it can be done. I've done it using a
wooden-rotor internal unit from a junked early '60s organ and I have
seen several built from internal units with styrofoam rotors
(essentially identical to the Vibratone's mechanism). Plywood
boxes are not that hard to build; I used solid pine for mine, believing
that the resonance of the cabinet adds to the tonal quality. But I
can't prove that, and would probably use plywood if doing it again.

I arranged the Leslie unit in my cabinet so the sound radiates in the
horizontal plane, like an organ cabinet, rather than in the vertical
plane like a Vibratone. I think that gives a more pronounced
effect from everywhere around the box, while a Vibratone sounds best
to the sides. I used the dimensions of the Leslie unit to
determine the "footprint" of the box. The height of the
Vibratone (and my rotary cabinet) are the same as my Fender Tremolux
2x10 cabinet, so they make a nice pair. Note the carefully
reproduced diagonal cutout in the front panel. I did this before
I was able to examine a real Vibratone, and it is a mistake. The
speaker should be completely enclosed, so the sound only comes out the
chute. The grillcloth panel covers this hole, so when the box is
completely assembled it's not a problem.

You can finish your work with Tolex covering, Fender grillcloth and
hardware, and have a very nice-looking cabinet in the style of the
Vibratone. These supplies are available from a number of sources
specializing in restoration and repair of older amps.

The control circuit is the tricky bit. Actually, if you find
the Cordovox method acceptable (footswitch chooses between your amp's
speakers and the Leslie, while a toggle switch on the cabinet changes
speeds), then it's dead simple. Since most guitarists don't use
the spin-up and spin-down as effects, this might well be
enough. If not, running AC power in the harness or wiring
relays is the pain.

Andy Stone built a
spinning-speaker design, which he says he based on the Davoli
Phonodoppler. See a video demonstration here:

David Morris went all-out and
built a two-part cabinet using plywood bass drum shells!

Heinz Bohlender came up with an innovative way to use one of
those built-in Leslie units: a light-weight, stand-alone box that can
be placed on top of a small amp, effectively turning it into a
Vibratone clone. The ideal amp is a Fender tweed style, with a
top-facing control panel. When laid on its back, the controls are
easily accessible and the Leslie cab slides down on it. Heinz went all
the way, finishing his in red Tolex covering that matches his amp.
Sweet!

the one-rotor phasing trick

The Henricksen article "Unearthing
the Mysteries of the Leslie Cabinet" goes into the acoustics of the
Leslie's upper horn and in particular the diffuser that's stuffed into
the throat of the horn. He shows how that diffuser adds to the
phasing effect by dispersing the apparent sound source. If one of the problems perceived with the
single drum is its relative lack of phasing frequency modulation, then
there should be a way to add a diffuser to the drum to achieve a
similar effect. And in fact there is. The wooden drum that
came with my early-'60s built-in unit has an .045" (1mm) thick
aluminum vane screwed to the scoop, running down the middle and
dividing the chute in half (click on left photo for larger
view). The Leslie techs I've shown this to hadn't seen that
before, so it was evidently not a widely-used solution. But it popped
up again late in the foam-rotor days, as seen in the second photo
(click on right photo for larger view). In any case, it's worth a
try. I think a sheet of .020" (.5mm) thick aluminum should
do the trick, or you could shape a vane from styrofoam and glue it in
with silicone. (I suspect metal will reflect highs better than
styrofoam.) You may need to add a balancing weight opposite the
vane to keep the rotor turning smoothly.

Vibratones tend to have a dark tone, a result of the crossover (on
the later style cabinets) and the speaker used. I have seen one
cabinet which had a tweeter added, though it wasn't pointed into the
drum. There's no reason why a tweeter couldn't be mounted coaxially in
front of the stock speaker, however, so the high frequencies would be
spread ariound the room, too. This would only make a difference on the
early cabinets, which do not have the crossover in the cable.